Credit Cards

In the entire history of the United States, consumers have never been in so much debt. And that would not be a crisis as long as the vast majority of us were regularly making our debt payments, but as you will see below delinquency levels are starting to rise to extremely alarming levels. In fact, some of the numbers that are coming in are even worse than we witnessed at any point during the last recession. If things are this bad already, what are they going to look like once the economy really gets bad? Because even though it appears that we are heading into a new recession, according to the Federal Reserve it has not officially begun yet. That means that much worse is yet to come. Just like last time, millions of Americans will likely lose their jobs, and without an income most of those that suddenly find themselves unemployed will not be able to pay their bills. The stage is set for the largest tsunami of consumer debt defaults that this country has ever seen, and that will absolutely devastate major financial institutions all across America. (Read More...)

Is the consumer debt bubble finally starting to burst? If the latest numbers on delinquent credit card accounts are any indication, that appears to be precisely what is happening. As I noted the other day, Americans currently have 480 million credit cards, and they are carrying 870 billion dollars worth of balances on those cards. That is one giant pile of debt, but there won’t be a problem as long as the vast majority of Americans regularly make their credit card payments. Unfortunately, the number of credit card accounts that are delinquent has been steadily rising, and now we are being told that the number of “seriously delinquent” accounts has shot up to 37 million… (Read More...)

How would you feel about Christmas if there were absolutely no gifts at all? That may sound like a very strange question, but I think that it is a very important one, because the truth is that our biggest holiday of the year by far is all about materialism. According to ABC News, the average American will shell out $700 for Christmas presents in 2018, and the National Retail Federation is projecting that total Christmas spending will surpass $465,000,000,000. Only 25 countries on the entire planet have a GDP that is greater than that number. Ultimately, Christmas is defined by what we give and what we get, but is that actually healthy? (Read More...)

If what a Harvard University constitutional law professor is claiming is true, the plot to steal the Electoral College vote from Donald Trump is far more serious than most people thought. Larry Lessig briefly pursued the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, but these days he is using his position as a Harvard law professor to try to stop Donald Trump. His new organization is called “Electors Trust”, and it has been acting as a central hub for the campaign to deny Trump the 270 votes that he needs to become the next president. If this effort is to be successful, anti-Trump forces need to flip 37 of Trump’s votes, and Lessig says that so far 20 Republican electors are considering voting against Trump. Of course there are many that are skeptical of his claims, but why would a Harvard constitutional law professor lie about something like this? (Read More...)

Wasn’t the Super Bowl wonderful this year? Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers! It is amazing how much money people will spend to attend this game each year. Just a few hours before kickoff, some tickets were selling for over $4000 a seat. Not that it wasn’t a great show. It turned out to be a really great game and it was held in perhaps the most extravagant sports facility ever constructed in the history of mankind. Even the halftime show, featuring the Black Eyed Peas, was a spectacle of historic proportions. This year the Super Bowl truly was quite a grand party. In America, everything always has to be bigger and better. We take pride in constantly outdoing ourselves. Other nations of the world look at our great prosperity in envy. But do we ever stop to ask ourselves where all of this great prosperity has come from and if we can continue to afford it all? (Read More...)

Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Interest rates will rise during the second half of 2010, and they will continue to rise during 2011. This is going to cause a lot of pain for the U.S. economy and for American consumers. Unfortunately, this is not just the opinion of a handful of half-baked Internet nutjobs. This is the assessment of the New York Times and of the highly respected economists that they interviewed. It seems that virtually everyone in the financial community agrees that it is inevitable that interest rates are going to rise. And that is really bad news for the U.S. economy. (Read More...)